


i'm just the words, you are the sound

by ohcinnamon



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Slow Burn, i cannot believe i actually got around to finishing this, pete makes possibly the best mistake of his life while drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 22:04:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10999929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohcinnamon/pseuds/ohcinnamon
Summary: But there's a bit of whiskey in his system, the darkening skyline blurring through his swirling vision, and determination in the pit of his stomach that won't let him go back to the bar. If there's one thing Pete Wentz is not, it's a quitter.





	i'm just the words, you are the sound

**Author's Note:**

> a playlist to correspond with the different parts of the story can be found [here](https://8tracks.com/menacepatrick/i-m-just-the-words-you-are-the-sound), along with the title track as a bonus at the end.
> 
> title from "be somebody" by thousand foot krutch.

It's far too cold outside, and Pete's definitely not supposed to be outside in just a hoodie and shorts. The wind is blowing his hair all over the place, the cold is biting at his cheeks, and his toes are starting to go numb from peeking out of his sandals. For once, he wishes he hadn’t thrown away his Ugg boots. They might have been ugly, but they were warm. And right now, his clothing taste is much better suited for LA than Chicago.

Well, he never said he was the world's smartest man.

But there's a bit of whiskey in his system, the darkening skyline blurring through his swirling vision, and determination in the pit of his stomach that won't let him go back to the bar. If there's one thing Pete Wentz is not, it's a quitter. Well, not _anymore_ , anyway. And is that sleet? _Fuck._

Sure, he might have called a taxi or something, but then _he_ might have seen the headlights and locked the door or something - at least, that makes sense to Pete in his current mental state. Honestly, he's hoping that if he shows up shivering on the doorstep, emotions raw and unraveling, he'll be reluctantly allowed in. He's not sure how well this plan will work, but it's worth a shot.

He's always worth a shot.

It's only eleven blocks from the bar, luckily - or was it fourteen? Does accidentally walking the wrong direction at first count toward the distance? He knows where he's going; the address is branded into his memory. It's just that his feet haven't taken him there in a long, long time.

In fact, the last time they'd talked was in that hotel room after their last show. He doesn't remember much past the fight and being thrown out. All he knows is that he'd woken up in Andy’s bed with a pounding headache as said band member slept on the floor, while Joe gazed sympathetically at both of them. It was six in the morning then, and Patrick was already gone.

And now he's here - two blocks away, trudging through the freezing rain and early December wind to see him again. He knows that he's changed - they both have; he's kept tabs on Soul Punk, of course. After Black Cards fell apart, he wasn't sure where to go but home, where he should have been all along. He needs his band. And they need him.

Ever so quietly, he makes his way down the sidewalk, brushing his hand over the mailbox as he passes. It would have been so easy to send a letter, an email, _anything._ So why hadn't he?

_I wasn't drunk enough to be brave_.

He manages not to fall down as he approaches the door, staring at the doorbell for a good minute. He really can’t go back to the bar now - maybe he was able to make it here, but he'll never remember the way back, not like he remembers the way _here_ as if it's the only thing he knows. It's really now or never.

His vision is probably burning a hole in the doorbell at this point, and he knows he's just got to stop thinking and do it. Not thinking is what's gotten him this far, anyway. But as he reaches out to ring it, the porch light flickers on, and the door swings open.

Pete's breath catches in his throat. He's still small enough to be mistaken for a high schooler, but something in his face seems older, more mature. Something has happened to him over these years, something other than Soul Punk, and Pete can't help but feel guilty that he wasn't here for it.

“Pete,” is all Patrick says, holding the door open with one arm. The other one is firmly drawn to his side, fingers closed in a tight fist, as if he's holding onto something that he can't bear to let go of.

“Hello,” Pete decides on for a start, seeing as there's not much one can fight about with ‘hello’ - though, given their history, he wouldn't be surprised if they could find something. “I think there might be sleet out here.”

Patrick’s eyes narrow, and the gaze Pete receives is even colder than the wind chill. It shoots straight to his core. “Pete, what are you doing here? We haven’t talked to each other for years, much less _seen_ each other, and I thought you were in LA these days anyway.”

“I usually am,” Pete says, glancing at his feet, which are bright red and tingling at this point. “But...I don't know, I thought I might drop into town for a while.”

“To show up at my door...and then what?” Patrick crosses his arms over his chest, peering up at him with a curious expression. “If you're just going to try to talk me into a reunion tour, then you can forget it, because -”

“I miss you,” Pete slurs, cutting him off. He didn't come all this way to run in circles with small talk. Maybe his lyrics once danced around the subject, but he can't do that anymore. It's been three years, and too much is at stake. “It's been too long. Two years and however fucking many days too long.”

“You're drunk,” Patrick states, a simple observation. But Pete hears something underneath it. He hears _you don't mean it, you wouldn’t come here in your right mind, you haven’t come around for years, Pete._

He's always known Patrick too well.

“Liquid courage,” Pete laughs, equal parts faking nonchalance and badly concealed bitterness. “Can I - can I come in? It's cold, and -”

“Yeah, just...yeah.” Before he can process it, Patrick's got a fistful of hoodie, pulling him inside so that he won't stumble over his feet anymore, and his stomach is doing the flippy thing again, the thing that it did when he first heard the kid sing. The house is warm - though surely not as warm as both of their cheeks right now - and the faint crackling of a fire in the background fills the space where the silence hangs.

“It smells good in here,” is what finally falls out of Pete’s mouth, and for the first time in what seems like an eternity, he hears Patrick laugh. “It _does_ . Like...like _warmth,_ I think.”

“I think that might be the fireplace, dumbass,” Patrick says, biting the inside of his cheek to hide a slight smile. “You need to sit down. Wait on the sofa, and I'll bring you some blankets to keep you from getting hypothermia or something.”

Pete nods and half sits, half falls onto the sofa, just happy that he's actually _inside_ and Patrick is _talking to him_ after three years apart and _holy shit,_ when did the shy boy he used to know grow into such a charming man? Well, a charming man who probably hates his guts, but nonetheless still breathtaking.

His eyes are fluttering open and closed when Patrick comes back into the dimly lit room with a plethora of blankets thrown over his shoulder. He places a glass of water and what looks like half of a loaf of bread on the coffee table before sitting down on the sofa himself, careful to keep more than enough distance between the two of them.

“I want you to finish both of these,” Patrick insists before Pete can even say anything. “I'm not dealing with a hungover Pete in the morning.”

As Patrick begins to unfold some of the blankets across his lap, a smile starts to creep onto Pete's face. “So I can stay the night? You're not going to kick me out?”

“Dressed like that? No.” Patrick adjusts his glasses to keep from looking directly at him, but Pete can still sense the vulnerability he's trying to hide. “Consider yourself lucky, Wentz. It's not often that I let drunk strangers crash on my sofa.”

“I don't think you could ever be a stranger to me,” Pete mumbles, voice soft, and he doesn't register that he's said it out loud instead of in his head until he sees the startled look in the blue eyes looking down at him. “I mean, you and I have known each other for so long. You couldn't...like... _not_ mean anything to me.”

“Well, I don't know about that,” Patrick says, faking a small smile as he drapes the blankets loosely over Pete's torso. “It's been a while.”

“Too long,” Pete says again, eyes half-lidded and expression honest. “I've missed you, I just haven't had the courage to face you again, to do this again.”

“Why?” Patrick asks, trying to sound unconcerned, though the undertone of raw emotion isn't well concealed. “It's not like I do much these days.”

“Thought you hated me,” Pete sighs, grabbing some of the bread to keep his hands occupied before he starts doing things he'll regret. “That last night, we...before you threw me out, you sounded so serious. I thought you'd never want to see me again.”

“We both said a lot of things,” Patrick replies carefully, fixing his gaze on the fire. “I thought you hated me too. Hell, _I_ hated me.”

“I could never hate you,” Pete murmurs, watching as Patrick flinches slightly at the words. “I'm kind of a shithead. I say a lot of stupid things and then I'm too caught up in my own excuses to fix them.”

“Got that right,” Patrick says, barely more than an exhale. “Though I suppose I'm not much better.”

“Thanks for putting up with me,” Pete says suddenly, the unusual surge of emotion in his voice forcing Patrick to look right at him. “Then and now. And whenever else.”

Patrick swallows hard, glancing down at his hands. “It's...I…” he trails off, closing his eyes for a good minute as whatever he's trying to say hangs over their heads. “You're gonna have to give me a minute, Pete. We haven't talked for three years and then you just show up on my doorstep, ready to start over or pick up where we left off like nothing happened or something like that. It's...it's not that easy for me. I really don't know where to start. I don't know what you want me to say.”

“Okay,” Pete whispers, feeling the hope in his chest dampen. Of course, this is already more than he could have ever asked for, but there's still this part of him begging _more, more_. “Okay.”

“Goodnight, Pete,” Patrick whispers back, standing up and drawing away in what seems like slow motion. His movements are stiff and shaky, and he gives off an air that can only be described as uncomfortable.

Pete knows what he's doing. It's not like this has never happened before. Patrick lets everything out, sets it all right in front of them, then seems to realize what he's done and tries to take it back. It's just the same as it was three years ago, five years ago, ten years ago. It's the same damn defense mechanism that Pete can never seem to break through.

“Hey, Patrick?” He manages to call loudly enough to halt the dark shadow at the end of the hallway. “You're a good guy. I don't tell you that enough. And I never stopped thinking of you as my best friend.”

Patrick is scarily silent, and Pete wonders if he's gone too far, as he often does. However, he hears the singer exhale loudly, and relief washes over him. “Go to bed, Pete. We'll talk in the morning. And, uh, by the way...I missed you too.”

It's all that Pete gets before Patrick’s bedroom door shuts softly, but it's still enough to light the flame in his chest again.

 

* * *

 

Patrick rests his back against the door, audibly groaning, though not loud enough that he'll be heard. Knocking the back of his head on the cold wood, he closes his eyes and wonders when exactly he became such a pushover.

Oh, yeah. It started about a decade ago, when he met the human enigma known as Pete Wentz.

And now said human enigma is sleeping on his sofa, drunk and emotional, and he's left to wonder what the fuck he's supposed to do about his little situation when morning comes. It's not exactly like he can put on a happy face and say, “hey, Pete! Let's pretend that the last three years never even happened and start over! It's not like I think about that stupid fight we had every day or anything. Not at all.”

Well, he _could_ say that, but it might be a little too passive aggressive, even for him.

What had even happened to him, to both of them? If Pete had never stopped thinking of Patrick as his best friend, wouldn't he have come back sooner? Wouldn't he have waited outside the door of the hotel room like he'd done so many times before, grabbed Patrick before he had the chance to make a getaway, and worked everything out like they always did?

The thing is, Patrick can't be mad about that, because he's just as much to blame. He's the one that left without saying goodbye in the first place. He never went out to LA in search of the man who kept him awake at night, never turned up at a Black Cards concert, never called or wrote or anything. The distance between them had been mutual; that is, until now.

The other thing is that what Pete said had felt like he'd been punched straight in the chest, because he'd never stopped thinking of Pete as his best friend, either.

“We are the shittiest best friends I've ever known,” Patrick mumbles to himself, laughing bitterly at his own expense. “Then again, the definition of ‘friends’ to us was always a bit vague.”

Without even consciously trying, dozens of memories bubble to the surface; memories that had remained untouched, _repressed_ over the past few years while he tried to forget the only thing that ever felt like home.

Cold nights huddled together in the crappy van, attempting to sleep in a shady parking lot because none of them had the money for a hotel; the rush of adrenaline he felt watching Pete dive headfirst into a crowd at a packed venue; being more drunk than he'd ever been after their very first award show and laughing like nothing else in the world mattered - everything that had once been a part of him, the times in his life when he'd truly felt _alive_ , all rushing together at once in a unceasing storm. God, he'd missed it. He'd missed it all so much.

He hasn't texted Joe for months, but he supposes that the best friend you haven't seen for years showing up at your door and telling you he never hated you after all is as good of a reason as any.

_Hey man, I know we haven't talked in a while, but I have a problem. And I think we both know him pretty well._

It hasn't even been a minute before his phone buzzes with a reply. _Shit, I didn't think Pete was serious about walking to your house._

_Wait, you knew?_

_He texted me earlier, something about “gotTA Go to paTRIc k’s house, need to See hIM again.” You can quote that. Didn't think he'd be stupid enough to walk through an actual blizzard though._

_He's drunk, Joe. When has he ever thought while he's hammered?_

_Well, that's probably what got him to your house in the first place._

Trohman’s got a point. Pete had said something about “liquid courage” when he came in. Would he take back everything he said in the morning? Would he run out before Patrick woke up?

The thought stabs him right in the heart. Sure, it's overwhelming enough to suddenly have Pete back in his life without warning, but to have him back and then to lose him again in the span of 24 hours? He doesn't think that's something he'll be able to take.

His phone buzzes again, breaking him out of his trance. _If you haven’t already, maybe don't bring up your last fight for a while._

_I haven’t. What do you mean?_

_From what Pete told us before he crashed that last night in New York, none of the tension between you two has been resolved. Like, ever. If you love him, leave it alone, at least until you're comfortable around each other again. Neither of you can run this time._

Patrick frowns, feeling his cheeks flush with warmth. He knows it isn't the point of the message at all, but one phrase is what sticks in his head. “If you love him?” What was that supposed to mean? _I don't love him. Not like that. He's my best friend, Joe._

_Nobody believes that but Wentz himself, my friend. We all know better._

Patrick wants to retort, but what is he supposed to say? Joe is possibly the person who knows him best, besides Pete, of course, and to be honest, most of his friends know things about him before he knows them himself.

_Patrick, you need to go to bed and wait to worry about what you're going to say until tomorrow. He'll still be there in the morning. Trust me._

_You know me too well._

_I know both of you too well, unfortunately._

Patrick shuts his phone off, with no real answer to all of the questions racing through his brain, but feeling slightly more reassured. Joe’s always been good at handling his crises - well, everyone’s crises, if he's being honest. They hadn't branded him as the peacemaker for nothing.

He pulls his sweater off with trembling hands and winces as a rush of cold air meets his bare skin. A pang of sadness tugs at his heart. Back when they used to share hotel rooms, nobody would have been cold; they probably would have been dying, actually, from too much shared body warmth. Patrick can definitely think of multiple times when he'd climbed over Andy to turn up the AC, or accidentally hit Joe in the face while throwing his arms around in an attempt to cool down, or even shoved Pete out of bed because that man was actually a human space heater.

And now he lays alone, watching the fan blades drift slowly in a circle, wondering if anything will ever be the same.

 

* * *

 

 

When Pete wakes up, his head only mildly hurts, which he considers somewhat of a miracle. He doesn't remember where he is for a good minute, but when all of the memories come rushing back, his eyes widen and he quickly tugs the blankets over his head.

“Shit. Oh my god,” he mumbles under his breath, so low that it's almost silent. “I'm here. I'm actually here.”

As if on cue, he hears soft footsteps on the wooden floor padding into the room. “Pete? You up? I've got breakfast, if you want it.”

Reluctantly, he removes the blankets from over his head to face the day. The sight in front of him, however, makes his heart stop dead in his chest.

Patrick looks unbelievably... _soft_. His fair hair is somewhat in disarray, like he's tried to run his fingers through it, but nothing else. An oversized sweater hangs off of his body, and socked feet are just barely visible from under the folds of his sweatpants. Big blue eyes blink tiredly behind crooked glasses, and his cheeks are still flushed from sleep. To put it in short, the small singer looks like the walking embodiment of a hug, and Pete mentally groans about how much willpower this is going to take to resist grabbing him and refusing to let go.

He doesn't say any of this, of course. He doesn't really think that would go over well.

“Oh...uh...thanks,” is what he says instead, getting up carefully, as if the floor might give way beneath them if his steps are too heavy. As soon as his eyes meet the light of the kitchen, the pounding in his head magnifies, and he squints his eyes to avoid the pain.

“I've got coffee and aspirin, too. Figured you might need some.”

Pete chuckles quietly, sliding into a chair and resting his head in his hands. “I guess you thought of everything.”

Patrick gives him a quick half smile, then turns around to search through his cupboards for something. “I think you forget it isn't my first time doing this.”

“Right,” Pete says, keeping his tone nonchalant, though the remark hits home. Of course Patrick would know what to do. He'd kept Pete's ass in line for nearly a decade. It wasn't new ground - at least, in some ways.

Suddenly, there's a hand on his back, and he freezes in place. “Here,” Patrick says, drawing back at the tension in Pete's shoulders. “Take these.”

Pete takes the aspirin from his other hand with a grateful gaze and a weary smile, all the while trying to keep his guard up. It's useless, and he knows it, but he can at least pretend. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

The day is beautiful, with golden light filtering in through the windows and creating intricate patterns across the floor. Pete kind of wishes that his head would stop trying to kill him so that he could appreciate it more.

Then again, he's witnessing this phenomenon from _inside_ Patrick’s house, so something can be said about the power of alcohol.

Patrick breaks the heavy silence. “You still okay with turkey bacon? I've been trying to find healthier alternatives lately.”

“That sounds great, ‘Trick,” Pete smiles weakly, surprised at how easily the old nickname had slipped out of his mouth. Part of him wishes that Joe and Andy or maybe even Brendon would be here to relieve some of the tension, but he knows that this is something they have to face alone.

“Bacon, eggs, and toast,” Patrick says, setting a plate in front of him before sliding into a chair himself. He's got a mug of coffee gripped tightly with both hands, but seems to have no desire for food.

“You gonna eat?” Pete asks, rather bluntly, and Patrick visibly flinches. It makes Pete's heart sink straight into the ground. Even now, healthier than he's ever been, Patrick is still hyperconscious about his appearance.

“I already ate,” Patrick finally says, eyes fixed on his mug. “Really, I did. You don't have to worry about that.”

“Good,” Pete replies carefully, searching for words that won't send them over the edge. “I remember how unhappy you used to be, and how you refused to eat anything sometimes. I don't want to see you like that again.”

“Like what?” Patrick asks, a hint of regret in his tone. “Fat? Angry? Pathetic?”

“No, that's not what I meant. I don't want to see you that sad anymore,” Pete murmurs, and Patrick's gaze rises to meet his own, looking like a deer in the headlights. “You deserve happiness.”

“Oh,” Patrick breathes out, and the silence returns.

Pete takes the opportunity to invest in his breakfast, subconsciously aware of Patrick's gaze falling on him and darting away repeatedly. If he tries hard enough, he can almost picture this as another hotel morning - _barging through the door with as much food from the complimentary breakfast buffet as he can carry, Patrick laughing at him from his bed, turning off the morning news to help him, the two of them sitting down on Pete's bed and eating in comfortable silence._

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Never mind. He shouldn't have gone there.

“How's Bronx?” Patrick asks, looking for anything to start a conversation. “I haven't seen him in a while.”

“He's growing up so fast.” Pete smiles a bit, feeling the knots in his stomach begin to detangle themselves. If there's one thing he never gets tired of talking about, it's his son. “He bounces between me and Ashlee, but he takes it all in stride. I don't think I could have ever handled that kind of thing as well as he does, but he's just...special, you know?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, giving him a real, genuine smile for the first time. “I miss him.”

“He misses you, too.” _I miss you._

Patrick clears his throat, looking back at the window. “So, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you somehow managed to get here before the worst of the blizzard hit. The bad news is that it doesn't plan on letting up anytime soon, so it seems like we're snowed in for the next few days.”

Upon realizing the hole he's now stuck in, Pete almost chokes on his food. Of _course_ this would happen to him. And, ready to jump to conclusions as always, the train of thought in his head starts full speed ahead down the track of possible outcomes to this situation.

One: He and Patrick don't talk very much for the next few days, skirt around the issues, and avoid any tricky conversations. This is probably the outcome with the least risk involved.

Two: He tries to talk to Patrick about the split, or the hiatus, or their fight, or _something_ stupid; he says the wrong thing, and gets his ass kicked out in the snow. This is probably the most likely scenario.

Three: He and Patrick somehow manage to work out their problems since they're kind of stuck together for god knows how long now, and it's about time they both grew up. This...he's so sure this one won't go to plan that he's really not sure why it's a possible outcome.

Four: ?????

Honestly, with the way his mind is processing things right now, it's looking a lot like Situation Four.

“Pete?” Patrick asks, bringing him back to reality.

“Hmm?” Pete says, trying to act like he wasn't just completely lost in his head, and that he's not so terrified of the next few days that he might actually piss himself. Convincing.

“I asked if you'd be okay with taking the guest room,” Patrick says, raising an eyebrow, but not questioning him any further. “Y’know, since I figured you probably don't want to sleep on the couch for the next few days. An actual bed might be nice.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Pete stutters, blinking like he's just stared directly into the sun - which, honestly, probably isn’t far from what it feels like to be looking at Patrick again, face to face, after three years. “Thanks, I mean. You don’t have to do this.”

Patrick shrugs nonchalantly, getting up to put his mug in the sink. “It’s really no problem. Besides, I don’t think you’d survive a blizzard like this.” He turns back to Pete, a sheepish yet mischievous smile gracing his lips. “After all, you’ve been in LA for a while. You probably don’t remember what a Chicago winter feels like.”

Oh, but he _does_ remember - he remembers it so vividly that he swears it could be yesterday. He remembers _their tiny apartment, and how the heat only worked half the time, and Patrick’s cold feet pressed up against his calves under layers and layers of blankets_. He couldn’t forget it if he tried.

“I’m gonna go take a shower now,” Patrick says, breaking him out of his thoughts once again. The messy-haired singer has crossed the room, and is now gazing at him curiously as he leans up against the far wall. “If you need anything, just yell, okay? Everything is...well, pretty much where you remember.”

“Right,” Pete says, wincing internally at the sentiment.

“You can...uh,” Patrick mumbles, playing with the hem of his sweater. “You can go through my closet and see what fits you, since I’m guessing you don’t have a secret stash of clothes in your pockets.”

It makes Pete's chest tighten. Of course, he'd forgotten that it would have to come to this. It shouldn't hurt as much as it does.

_Stealing Patrick's socks when he can't find any of his own. Patrick in his hoodie, the sleeves hanging over his hands. Finding mixed-up clothing in luggage after a tour. “Keep it, you look better in that than I do.” “Liar.”_

“Thanks,” Pete says, forcing a smile onto his face. Patrick, thankfully, doesn't seem to see through it, and heads down the dimly-lit hallway with nothing more than a nod in Pete's direction.

This is going to be a lot harder than he thought.

 

* * *

 

 

Patrick cannot figure out what Pete's playing at.

The older man is just lounging quietly on the couch, flipping through Patrick’s limited collection of books and magazines and whatever else. It's so unlike him to be so subtle, so quiet around Patrick, that he's half-convinced that someone stole the real Pete and replaced him with this...this _clone_ of his - former? current? - best friend.

It almost makes him sick. They used to annoy each other half to death because they couldn't shut up when they were together, and now the only fucking thing Patrick knows is that Pete still likes turkey bacon.

It's almost like Pete is afraid to move, as if he's in the middle of a minefield, and anything he does could start the detonation. Even though they've both been awake for hours now, Pete hasn't even changed clothes yet - which is a bit awkward, and also brings back a weird sense of nostalgia. Here he is, over a decade after the band first started, and he still has to remind Pete to get dressed.

“Pete,” he says, breaking the heavy silence blanketing the room. “Hey, I meant it when I said you can borrow my clothes, dude. I think I still might have a Clandestine hoodie in there somewhere, even.”

Pete smiles up at him, but Patrick knows it's fake. He knows Pete like the back of his hand, and he's sure of the fact that Pete's been putting up a front all morning. It cuts deep - just last night he'd been so open, so vulnerable - and now he's...this. Avoiding Patrick like he's got the plague.

_He probably regrets coming here at all and hates you._ Patrick watches him quietly meander down the hallway to his bedroom, footsteps light like they'd never been before all this, like he's afraid to touch anything for fear of it coming apart. _Wouldn't blame him._

It makes his brain itch with frustration. Here he is, three years after he blew up at Pete for good, and the bass player is _still_ managing to get under his skin. It's been years and years and Patrick still can't figure him out all the way - not in a way that makes any logical sense, anyway. He's like a puzzle with missing pieces that someone tried to replace with another game; nothing fits quite right.

There's a crash from down the hallway, and even Patrick's surprised at how fast he's on his feet and running toward the noise, heart racing.

When he looks into his bedroom, he sees Pete sitting on the floor and rubbing at his head, with clothes scattered all around him. Seeing Patrick, he shrugs sheepishly and starts to pick up the fallen articles of clothing.

“Sorry,” he says quietly, putting a shirt back onto its hanger with extreme precision. “I was trying to move some stuff and I accidentally knocked a box over on my head, and a bunch of stuff came down with me when we went down.”

“It's okay,” Patrick says, heart clenching at the way Pete looks up at him, dark eyes glazed with an emotion he can't read. “Find something?”

“Yeah, actually,” Pete says, getting up and turning in a circle to model his finds for Patrick. “This fits me pretty well, I think.”

Patrick recognizes the shirt, of course - the “dive in” t-shirt that he once famously took a shower in. He attempts to push the memory down as soon as it surfaces, but the effort is useless; _the two of them laughing as Patrick walked into the shower fully clothed, Pete recording the whole thing for some fucking reason._ He doesn't remember how or why it happened, but the feeling behind it is still there.

Now that he thinks about it, the shirt was originally Pete’s to begin with, but it somehow must have found its way into his closet for all these years. He thought he'd put most of the band’s old stuff into the box he kept at the back of the closet. Go figure.

“I think that's because it used to be yours,” Patrick says, hoping the smile that he sends across the room looks genuine enough. “It must have gotten thrown in with my stuff at some point.”

Pete runs his fingers through his hair, nodding quietly. “Yeah, I think I have some of your stuff, too. Miss the bingo hat?”

Patrick chuckles lightly at that. “You know what? You can keep that one.”

The room falls silent, and Patrick's unsure of what to say in a way that he never would have been before. Pete is _Pete_. The cliché movie quoting, sharp-witted, overly affectionate man that Patrick knows is there somewhere, buried under layers of shields and fronts and buffers between them.

For the first time, it registers in Patrick's mind that they're physically closer right now than they have been in three years, and yet it feels like they couldn't be farther apart.

“I think I'm gonna step out for a second,” Pete finally says, eyes trained on the floor. _God, now he can't even look at me?_ “Gonna tell Ashlee that I can't take Bronx this weekend. You know how it is.”

Actually, Patrick _doesn't_ know how it is, because he barely even knows Pete's kid or his ex-wife or _anything_ about his life anymore, but he nods anyway, and steps aside to let the older man exit.

As he passes, silent except for the sounds of his footsteps again, the heaviness on Patrick's chest only cements itself. This whole thing is _so goddamn stupid_. Part of him wishes he'd slammed the door shut in Pete’s dumb fucking face last night. At least that way he wouldn't have to deal with the truth.

If Pete's going so far as to avoid him as much as he can, then he's probably too far gone for Patrick to reach anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

It feels weird at this point to wear the shirt, even though it used to be his. Patrick usually wore it more than him anyway - and now it even smells like him, which stings a little bit in an ironic sense. “ _I sleep with your old shirts_ ” wasn't a hypothetical lyric.

It seems like he's fallen into the “don't do anything that will make Patrick hate you” plan pretty well, but then again, he can't really tell why Patrick's being this nice to him in the first place. He has every right to hate Pete, to throw him out like he threw him out of their hotel room years ago, and yet he doesn't. Why?

Staring at the ceiling as he lays on the unfamiliar bed, he swears he must be hallucinating now. He can almost hear the strumming of guitar strings and the scratch of pen on paper drifting through the open door. It takes him right back to their old apartment, where the walls were paper thin and he could hear every movement Joe or Patrick made.

Maybe he isn't hallucinating, though, because the music is only getting louder, and it's a melody he knows he hasn't heard before. He sits up slowly, straining to hear without trying to make too much noise, and catches the tail end of some garbled mumbling about never being able to write the right lyrics.

And then his heart flips so violently it throws him off balance.

Patrick is _singing._

His chest clenches and his throat goes dry, because that's a sound he hasn't heard in person in a long, long time. It feels like someone's punched him right in the stomach - the very thing that was the only way to get him to sleep some nights now makes him feel like he's going to throw up from the anxiety.

Before he even realizes what's happening, his feet are carrying him down the hallway, toward the sliver of light peeking out from under the bedroom door. Even if it makes him sick, or worse, hopeful, he has to hear Patrick singing in person again. He's not going to throw this opportunity away if it might be the last time he'll hear it.

_“Sometimes before it gets better, the darkness gets bigger; the person that you'd take a bullet for is behind the trigger.”_

And boy, if that one isn't a sucker punch.

All of a sudden, the music ceases, and Pete holds his breath, trying his best not to move. However, try as he might, the floor betrays him by squeaking loudly, and he sighs in frustration.

“Pete?” Patrick calls, the tone of his voice sounding somewhat unsure. “That you?”

Pete pushes the door open gently, finding a just-as-startled Patrick sitting on the edge of his bed with a guitar in his lap. Open notebooks are scattered around them, with lyrics scribbled down in smudges of blue pen. “Hey. Couldn’t sleep.”

  
“That’s nothing new,” Patrick muses, smiling tiredly up at him. “Sorry, I probably kept you up being too loud.”

“No, don’t apologize,” Pete reassures him quickly, smiling back. “It was good. It’s been a while since I heard you sing something other than Fall Out Boy or Soul Punk stuff.”

Patrick’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “You listened to Soul Punk?”

“Yeah, man.” _Of course I did, how could I not?_ “It was really good. Was that another solo project song?”

“I don't know,” Patrick sighs, putting his guitar down gently. “I wanted it to be, but it just didn't feel like Soul Punk to me. It actually, uh, kinda felt like…”

Pete's breath catches in his throat. _Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it out loud._ “Yeah. It sounds like that to me, too.”

Patrick sighs, looking back at the crumpled page closest to him, eyes glancing over the paper he’d poured his heart out into. “I’m not even really sure why I’ve been writing like this. It’s not like I’m gonna use any of these songs, anyway.”

“You should,” Pete says, nodding toward the papers sprinkled across the bed. “Your writing deserves to be heard. Not enough people know how talented you are.”

“Thanks,” Patrick mumbles, as reluctant to accept a compliment as always. He smiles up at Pete with sad eyes, a bittersweet expression that puts a bad taste in Pete's mouth. “You know, sometimes I wonder how it ever even came to this. When I was sixteen, the furthest I could see into the future was the next week ahead, and it felt like forever. When you grow up with that, it feels like it _should_ be forever.”

Something warm flickers in Pete's chest, and he feels it spreading to his face. _You have no idea how badly I wish it would have been like that forever._

Patrick catches Pete's wide-eyed stare, and hurriedly backtracks. “I mean, I was younger then, of course. I didn't know anything about life, not really.”

“No,” Pete murmurs, leaning heavily against the doorframe, like it's the only thing that can keep holding him up. “I understand. It was forever to me, too.”

Patrick’s silent again, and Pete suddenly wonders if he’s said too much. He wouldn’t be surprised, honestly - putting his foot in his mouth is what he’s best at.

He turns to leave, but creaking of Patrick standing up from his bed makes him pause. “Wait,” he says, almost too quietly to be heard, like he’s afraid of hearing his own words.

Pete spins back around, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Patrick shuffles his feet awkwardly, not looking up to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry if I was a bit... _harsh_ last night. I just didn’t expect…”

His voice trails off, but Pete knows what he means. To be honest, he wasn’t expecting any of it either, but the drunk version of himself has ways of getting what he wants. He’s always been bad at impulse control, even sober.

He scratches the back of his neck, laughing nervously. “Yeah, I wasn’t really expecting it either. Sorry for just showing up out of nowhere. I probably should’ve...like...sent an email. Or something.”

Patrick shrugs, a small smile gracing his lips. “I mean, hey. You’re here now. Nothing you can do about it.”

Pete can’t help but smile back, feeling something in his chest begin to fill and hold. _The best things in life happen by accident._ Somewhere, buried under layer upon layer of memories he hasn’t let himself dig through in a long time, is the familiar sense that he’s right where he’s supposed to be - the same sense he got when they recorded their first album in Madison, when they shared hotel rooms in Detroit or Cleveland or Toronto, when they went all out because they were playing a show in Chicago.

This, despite the past three years, is starting to feel a bit too much like home.

“I guess you’re stuck with me now.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s been a long, long night for Patrick.

After tossing and turning for a good two hours or so after Pete had slipped out of his room, he’d decided that sleep was pretty useless, especially when his heart was still hammering like he’d just ran a marathon. He’s not sure why this is making him so nervous - this is someone he’s known for almost half of his life. Then again, that could be the exact reason. To be on such uneven footing with someone who used to be familiar territory makes his stomach flip.

He eventually pulls himself out of bed, with the intention of writing down some of the thoughts buzzing around in his head. Maybe if he can just get it all out of his system, he’ll be able to calm down enough to sleep.

But of course, with his luck, exactly the opposite happens. Every time he writes more than a few lines down, he gets so frustrated with himself that the paper quickly becomes a mix of crumpled edges and crooked tears. He’s not exactly sure how Pete did it all of these years, how words just flowed out of him like an endless stream of consciousness. Everything he tries just sounds broken and wrong.

_I didn’t mean to make you -_

_You know you mean a lot to m -_

_I’m just sorry, Pete -_

After about half an hour, he realizes that his brain keeps trying to form his thoughts into a letter. Somehow, subconsciously, he’s been trying to convert his confusion into a way to convey his thoughts. It makes sense, now that he thinks about it. Now that Pete’s actually here, he’s attempting to figure out how to resolve the tension between them without making everything worse. It’s something he’s wanted for three years, but never known how to go about.

Why had Pete decided to come back to Chicago?

Throwing himself back into writing, he lets the pen fly across the page with a vengeance, pouring out whatever his brain is thinking, questions and sentence fragments and phrases all conjoining like a mismatched patchwork quilt. However, nothing is coming out coherently, probably because Patrick refuses to let himself remember more than short snippets of _that night_. It’s the only thing that’s kept him semi-sane this entire time.

_“Is that what you want? For me to leave? If that’s what’ll make you happy, then consider me halfway out the door already.”_

_“Fuck you, you know that’s not what I meant.”_

_“Then what the hell is your problem with me? What did I do to piss you off this much?”_

_“Of course, because everything always has to be about you, doesn’t it? Did it ever occur to you that I’m tired of being a recurring character on the Pete Wentz Disaster show?”_

The words bite, even now. Just _thinking_ about them leaves a foul taste on Patrick’s tongue, and he wonders how he ever let them fall out of his mouth in the first place. He had been frustrated, sure, but he hadn’t meant that. He’d just been trying to get under Pete’s skin, like the ruthless ice in his veins had itched for him to do.

He never meant for Pete to leave. He never meant for _himself_ to leave. He knew the band needed a break, but he hadn’t intended for them to have a break, too.

The words “Madison Square Garden” still make him flinch. New York City had lost its magic, after that.

He keeps attempting - and failing - to write out what he wants to say until the light starts creeping in through the blinds. That’s when he forces himself to sit back and take a good, hard look at himself. His hands are aching and calloused, his floor is littered with useless brain vomit, and he’s nowhere closer to figuring himself out than he was four hours ago. On the bright side, however, at least now his eyelids feel heavy. If he can heave himself up for long enough to make it to his bed, he’ll be out.

He lugs himself over to his bed, makes the effort to drag the covers over himself, and lets his head hit the pillow. Sleep, finally, seems to be closing in on him, thank god. But before he can drift off, the events of the past day decide to make one last loop through his brain. If this is the universe’s way of telling him that he should stop pushing the past away, it might not be the worst idea to listen to it.

_“I guess you’re stuck with me now.”_

“Jesus, Pete,” Patrick sighs to himself, pressing his face into the pillow. “When have I not been stuck with you?”

 

* * *

 

 

When Pete wakes, Patrick’s door is still shut, which makes him crack a smile. It seems like Patrick’s sleep habits haven’t changed, at least - he’s always been the one that sleeps as long as he can.

When he makes his way into the kitchen, though, Patrick is awake, humming quietly to himself while flipping pancakes. It’s so unexpected and domestic that it shakes Pete to his core, and he longs for the days when he could walk up behind Patrick in their apartment while he was making breakfast and hug him, which usually earned a yelp and thoroughly burnt toast. It was rare, the days when Patrick woke up before him and Joe of his own accord, and Pete had learned to treasure those days.

It’s just the same now. He almost doesn’t want to interrupt Patrick’s quiet, half-singing, half-humming rendition of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” - how oddly appropriate - but it might count as creepy if he just stands here and watches without saying anything. Not like he’s never done it before, but it’s different now. They have boundaries now.

He clears his throat just loud enough to break Patrick out of song, and when he turns to face Pete, the smile on his lips could probably put the sun out of business. It makes his stomach turn nervously, like he’s a third-grader with a crush - though that might not be too far off the point, for him. “Hey,” Patrick says, sounding...happy? “Pancakes okay?”

  
“Yeah, of course,” Pete finds himself saying, leaning himself against the wall so that he won’t fall over with surprise. If Patrick had seemed hesitant last night - or the night before, for that matter - he’s not showing it this morning. He’s not gonna lie, it scares him a little bit. He’s not entirely sure what’s going on in Patrick’s head anymore, and that’s something he’s not used to. He wants to be ready for anything, but he feels like he’s been thrown into the boxing ring with no gloves on.

“So the Weather Channel says the front the blizzard came in on is moving pretty slowly,” Patrick explains, in the same cheery tone that’s kind of freaking Pete out. “Which means that we might be snowed in for longer than usual. Even after the snow stops, it’ll be pretty dangerous to go out on the road with the ice.”

Oh _fuck._ This is just what he needs - more time to spend in the torture of what he’ll never have taunting him. Great. Just great. He loves his luck.

“Are you sure you’re okay with me staying here?” Pete asks, and Patrick turns around, a surprised look on his face. “I can always crash at a hotel or something. I don’t want you to have to go out of your way for me or anything.”

“You’re not a burden, Pete,” Patrick says, looking at Pete with an incredulous expression. He puts down his spatula and turns to face him, and Pete feels frozen. He couldn’t run, even if he wanted to - the weight of Patrick’s gaze on him is nailing his feet to the floor. He’s not a burden? Since when? “Honestly, you being here is fine with me - it’s not like I’ve never lived with you before. Like you said, it’s been too long since we saw each other. Why not start now?”

“Okay, cool,” Pete mumbles, rubbing at the back of his neck and looking at the ground. Even so, he still feels Patrick stare burning into him, tearing holes in his chest. “I’ll just go ahead and get out of your wa -”

“Pete,” Patrick interrupts, voice sweet and gentle, and it makes warmth spread slowly through Pete’s chest. Patrick hasn’t said his name like that in a long, long time. “You don’t have to tiptoe around me, you know. I’m not mad at you anymore.”

“But I just...showed up,” Pete gapes at him, aware of how shell-shocked he must look right now. “I just threw myself back into your life, no warning, and you’re okay with that?

“I’m not gonna lie; it kind of threw me for a loop,” Patrick admits, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly and going back to cooking. Pete’s mouth falls open, but he makes a quick point of it to snap it shut. If Patrick isn’t too worried about this, then maybe he shouldn’t be, either. “I was frustrated with you. But after I had time to think about it, I figured things happen for a reason, right? And you go with it. If the universe is telling me it’s time to stop being so stubborn, I should probably listen to it for once.”

“So...we, we can,” Pete stutters, awed at how smoothly Patrick had put his plans to avoid confrontation until all of this was over to bed. “We can be friends again? You'd be okay with that?”

Patrick tilts his head back, smiling at him over his shoulder and just like that, the butterflies crashing around in his stomach are back. “I don't think we ever stopped being friends, Pete. But...yeah. I forgive you. Everything is okay. _We're_ okay.”

Pete’s heart soars, and he can’t stop the smile spreading across his face. “Okay. I...okay.”

 

* * *

 

After the events of the day, Patrick is definitely looking forward to falling into his bed and immediately going to sleep. He’d gotten up way too early, and now he’s going to bed way too late. He doesn’t even want to stay awake to process anything - that can wait until the morning. He’s still running on, like, five hours of sleep, which his body is practically screaming at him for. The sweet, sweet relief of going to bed takes top priority over everything at the moment.

It only feels like he’s had his eyes shut for five seconds before the banging down the hallway begins, and he pulls his pillow over his head. Of course tonight would be the night that Pete would have trouble sleeping. That’s just how his luck works.

Well, there goes his idea of catching up on rest.

He blearily rubs at his eyes, noting that his alarm clock says he’s only been asleep for about half an hour, and scowls at it. Shoving the covers off with his eyes still closed, he fumbles his way to the bedroom door, shivering as the cold air hits him. What he wouldn’t give to be under his warm comforter, tucked up amongst his too-many pillows right now...

However, when he makes his way down to the guest room, guilt at being annoyed washes over him. Pete’s eyelids twitch as he dreams, and a sheen of sweat glistens on his forehead. His limbs are flailing in different directions as he tosses and turns, whimpering in his sleep. Patrick hasn’t seen one in a long time, but he knows for certain that this is one of his night terrors.

He throws the door all the way open so that it smacks against the wall, hoping the loud noise will startle Pete awake, but it looks like he’s having no such luck. Pete doesn’t even register the sound, crying out a string of garbled nonsense that makes Patrick’s heart sink. He perches himself on the side of the bed, wincing at Pete’s pained, scared expression. It hasn’t been this bad since they shared an apartment together, and even then he’d usually been able to wake him up somewhat easier.

He steadies himself on the edge of the bed, trying to shake Pete awake by the shoulders. Pete’s usually a light sleeper; it shouldn’t be this hard to break him out of it. However, it's like trying to move a brick wall. Pete's cries only grow stronger, and Patrick catches an accidental blow to the ribs, wincing in pain. He throws the blankets back, digging his knees into the other man’s side in the hopes of keeping him from rolling anymore.

“Pete, hey, wake up,” Patrick urges, trying to catch his thrashing arms. He barely manages to get out of the way of a flying elbow before he swings a leg over Pete’s waist and just sits on him. He remembers having to do this a handful of times to get him to stop moving around enough to wake him up, and even after all this time, it comes back to him like muscle memory. Trapping one forearm under his knee, he grabs the other with both hands and presses it against the bed, panting heavily. “You’re just dreaming, Pete, it’s okay, _wake up_.”

Pete’s eyes snap open, chest heaving as he tries to register what the hell is going on. Patrick brushes his damp hair back, being as gentle as he knows how to be. Pete’s breath stutters against his face in short, shallow waves, and his dark eyes are so wide that Patrick can see his own reflection in them. He gradually releases Pete's arm from its hold under his knee, and draws his own hands back so they brush against his chest. He can feel that the older man’s heartbeat is still coming in frantic, erratic rhythm, but his breathing is beginning to even out, so Patrick allows himself to relax just a little bit.

“It was just a dream,” Patrick soothes, shifting his position so that he’s sitting next to Pete rather than on top of him. Pete sits up slowly, running his hands through his hair, and Patrick can’t stop himself from reaching out and brushing his knuckles softly against his cheek. It’s something that always got him to calm down and sleep before, and it’s the hope that it’ll still work that’s driving him. Pete sucks in a breath at the sudden touch before hesitantly leaning into it, letting his eyes fall closed. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

He lets the room go quiet after that, just listening as Pete’s labored breathing slows and his shoulders begin to slump as the tension leaves them. Maybe it’s just because he’s ridiculously tired, or because it’s ass o'clock in the morning, but the familiarity of the intimacy doesn’t bother him as much as it probably should.

“Sorry,” Pete finally breaks the silence, slowly opening his eyes and glancing over at Patrick. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay,” Patrick reassures him, trying for a bright smile. “I remember when they used to happen all the time. Someone’s got to calm you down.”

“It was almost always you,” Pete smiles back, but there’s a sad undertone in his gaze. “Hemmy tried his best, but dogs only do so much, you know?”

Patrick bites the inside of his cheek. He never really thought about who would wake Pete from the night terrors after he left. Did he still scream in his sleep sometimes? Did he still wake everyone in the house? He doesn’t even want to think about Bronx having to live through one - nightmares are scary enough for kids, without the added stress of going through your _dad_ having them.

He remembers when the night terrors had peaked - back while they were recording _Cork Tree_ , after Pete had tried to overdose. They'd all taken shifts sleeping over at Pete's house, watching over him as best as they could. It wasn't long, though, before the nightmares reached a point where they became unbearable for Pete, and he'd started to stay awake for so long in fear of going to bed that he'd collapse during the day, which scared the living shit out of them more than a few times.

After that, it was swiftly decided that Patrick would move in, at least for a little while, to force Pete to take care of himself. Staying in the guest room turned into sleeping on a cot in Pete's room, which turned into sleeping in Pete's bed, which turned into waking up wrapped around each other every morning. He misses it more than he cares to admit.

“Are you okay?” Patrick asks, mostly to distract himself before he starts thinking about this too much.

Pete nods, drawing the blankets back up tentatively. “I don’t think it’ll come back now. Thank you for waking me up.”

Patrick gets up to leave, noting that he’s not needed anymore, but a sharp intake of breath from behind him stops him in his tracks. Pete locks his fingers around Patrick’s wrist, making him jump, the bed shaking with how deeply he’d startled. His gaze is open and pleading, and it makes an ache crawl up Patrick’s spine and into his shoulders.

“Stay,” Pete begs, voice hoarse, and even in the dim light, Patrick can see the desperation in his eyes. “Please just...stay with me until I fall asleep. You can leave after that if you want, I promise. I just can’t be alone right now.”

Patrick’s breathing comes to a standstill, frozen as Pete’s gaze remains locked on his. On one hand, if Pete’s actually asking him to stay, it could mean that things really are starting to go back to normal for them. But on the other hand…

Fuck it. He doesn’t want to think about the other hand right now. He’s gotten little to no sleep in the past 24 hours, and if his judgement is shot, then so be it.

“Move over,” he finally says, nudging Pete with his shoulder. The older man’s expression softens with relief, and he quietly shifts over so that Patrick can slide in beside him. Hesitantly, Patrick curls up next to him, feeling as the exhaustion washes over him yet again. Honestly, he doesn’t think he could get up if he tried. It’s not the first time they’ve shared a bed - it’ll be fine. He’ll be fine.

Pete falls asleep first, but Patrick isn’t far behind.

 

* * *

 

 

Pete expects to wake up cold and drained, like usual - especially with the exhaustion of the nightmares. This one had been particularly bad, a recurring one that he’d been having ever since the band first started; himself, trapped inside the locked van as he watches his friends die outside, Joe sinking to the ground, Andy covered in blood, Patrick’s voice screaming out in pain as he looks on helplessly - it’s enough to make him so exhausted that he stays in bed for days. Instead, however, he’s surprised to find himself surrounded by warmth and surprisingly rested.

Then he realizes Patrick’s still in bed with him, and the confusion disappears.

Patrick is pulled up against his chest, head half on the pillow and half on Pete’s shoulder. One arm is tucked up, trapped against Pete’s chest, and the other is haphazardly thrown across his side. His fair hair is in disarray, and his expression is peaceful as he sleeps. Pete likes seeing how content he looks in this moment, all steady breathing and relaxed muscles. He’s always been a rather deep sleeper, thankfully.

Pete moves as little as possible, shifting just enough that he can roll onto his back without disturbing Patrick’s slumber. The latter makes a slight “hmph” sound, and Pete holds his breath, but he goes right back to normal, resting his head on Pete’s chest. He knows that if he lets Patrick stay like this, he’ll have a dead arm pretty soon, but he doesn’t exactly mind. They haven’t fallen asleep together like this since before _Folie_. He’ll take what he can get.

He prays that Patrick can’t feel the way his heartbeat fumbles over itself as he squirms closer, pressing his cold feet into Pete’s calves just the way he did in their old apartment, in the back of the van, in numerous hotel rooms. So many times they’d fallen asleep together, Patrick singing to him until he passed out, or his fingers tracing lines into Patrick’s skin gingerly, mapping out patterns until sleep claimed him. One of his favorites was starting at the shoulders, feeling the way Patrick’s muscles tensed and relaxed as he slept, looping back and forth across his collarbones and to the back of his neck.

Turning his head to look for it now, it feels like someone has punched him in the stomach, and all the breath flees his lungs, making tufts of Patrick’s hair flutter as it fans the span of his cheeks. His lips are slightly parted, a light shade of rose and just as beautiful as Pete remembers. Christ, the list of what Pete wouldn’t give to kiss him again is so short that it could be nonexistent. Patrick doesn’t remember it - at least, not that he knows of - but it would take nothing short of a bleach cleaning to get the remnants of the memory out of Pete’s brain.

_“Dance, Dance” has just gone platinum, and there's a party at Pete’s house, and Patrick is just so affectionate when he's drunk. One hand is splayed across Pete’s hip, holding on so that he won’t fall over, and the other is clasped around a glass with something pink inside it that he’s probably had one too many of. It’s ridiculous, how stunning he is to Pete. His cheeks are rosy, his head is tipped back in laughter, and Pete wants to press his lips to that smile. So he does._

_The corner that he’d found Patrick in, hammered and happy, is dark enough that they look just like nobody, and to be honest, Pete's not too concerned about who might see them. He's kind of infamous for kissing other dudes; it’s almost expected of him for this to happen sometime or another. They don't have to know why. They don't have to know what's in his head._

_He presses Patrick back against the wall, and the cold, fruity-smelling drink hits the floor by their feet, soaking his ankles and probably ruining his new shoes. He doesn't care, though, not with his fingers threaded through Patrick’s belt loops and Patrick’s nose brushing his, stuttering warm and shaky breaths against his lips. His eyes are half-lidded and dark with something deeper, and Pete just wants - he wants this more than anything. Pete kisses him, warm and wet and unguarded, and melts._

_Patrick kisses him back for a minute, sweet and smiling, before beginning to laugh so hard that he has to push Pete away, grinning all the while. Pete can't even be mad, though, because Patrick thinks everything is funny when he's drunk, and it's probably better this way in the long run. He already knows that the younger man won’t remember a thing in the morning. Pete smirks, licks a stripe across his cheek, and Patrick laughs louder, shoving him away._

_“You owe me a drink, jackass,” he says, eyes sparkling, and it takes everything Pete has in him to stop from falling in love with him on the spot._

His chest aches with the want, missing the feeling of the buzzing in his head mixed with the sweetness of the alcohol on Patrick’s tongue. The way Patrick had been so open then, warm and pliant, all laughter and smiles, still nearly knocks the wind out of him. Being here again, as alive as it makes him feel, is also killing him. Slowly. Vengefully. _With knives_.

He makes the decision then and there that he needs to get out of bed right now, before his brain can concoct a couple of other scenarios that he’s imaged more than a few times. Adding to that list, he also needs a shower. A cold shower.

After standing under the showerhead so long that his fingers go pruney and he’s not sure he’ll ever be dry again, he steps out, toweling off as best as he can so that he won’t drip all over the floor. He has to go and find another change of clothes - and seriously, this isn’t fair; everything here is so overwhelmingly Patrick that it taunts him endlessly. He’s started to smell like the guy, for god’s sake. (Whether this is a good or bad thing is still up in the air.)

Padding quietly down the hallway toward Patrick’s bedroom, he stops to peek into the guest room. Sure enough, Patrick is still sound asleep, twisted up in blankets with his hair sticking up in odd places, gleaming golden as it gets caught in the sunlight streaming through the blinds. He makes soft sounds as he sleeps, content, with the corners of his lips twitching up into a smile. He looks infinitely younger and happier like this, like nothing can touch him.

It makes something in Pete’s chest tighten, and he quickly turns away. Besides, he can’t stand there for too long, or he’s going to leave a puddle. He decides that’s the story he’s sticking to.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s nearly noon when Patrick wakes up, and his right arm has gone completely numb from laying on it.

Groaning, he pushes himself up, rubbing blearily at his eyes. The sheets are all twisted up around his legs - does he really roll that much in his sleep? - and his hair is sticking up all over the place. Kicking at the blankets, he manages to get his lower half untangled, and then goes to the work of running his fingers through his hair until most of the knots are out. At this point, he doesn’t even want to look at himself in the mirror. He’s pretty sure he won’t like what he’s going to see.

Well, he’d finally gotten sleep, at least. He blinks a couple of times, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings until he remembers he’s still in the guest room.

Alone?

The other side of the bed is cold, which means Pete must have left a while ago. He wonders how long he’s been here alone, how Pete had reacted when he woke and realized that Patrick was still in bed with him. Did he freak out? Did he feel anything at all?

Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that he still has to get out of bed and face the day, no matter how much he doesn’t want to. He swings his legs out of bed, wincing as his bare feet land on the cold floor. It has _got_ to be getting colder outside, which makes him groan. Couldn’t this blizzard do him at least one favor and be like, maybe a few degrees warmer? Is that too much to ask? Shaking his head, he leaves the warmth of the bed and makes his way to his bedroom. Maybe once he puts some socks and a sweater on, he’ll be able to think straight.

When Patrick finds Pete alone in his room, he notices a few things.

One, that Pete is wearing one of his cardigans, which is...well, he doesn’t exactly know how he feels about that. It makes it hard for him to breathe in an unexplainable way, but then again, that could be his asthma. Yeah. Sure.

Two, his floor is covered in small puddles of water, and Pete’s hair is still dripping. He _could_ chew Pete out for being a jackass, but that probably wouldn’t be a great idea seeing as their friendship is still teetering on the edge of the great abyss. Besides, it’s kind of endearing in a way that it never was before - in the same way a messy house can be endearing because it looks “lived in.” It means he’s not alone anymore.

Three, Pete is flipping absentmindedly through his notebooks, gaze darting over words Patrick’s been reluctant to show anyone, or even to write for his own eyes. It makes his heart jackhammer in his chest, because those are _his_ words. He’s still not even sure what’s written there, had lost track of all the long nights and ink stains long ago. It’s the closest thing he has to diary, and Pete reading it, of all people, makes his heart jump into his throat.

He clears his throat quietly, and Pete jumps, tossing the notebook he’d been holding to the floor. Wringing his hands, he sheepishly looks up at Patrick, guilt written in his expression.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, shuffling his feet nervously. “I shouldn’t have done that, but your writing is so good, and I just -”

“It’s fine,” Patrick says abruptly, wincing internally as Pete flinches at the bluntness of his words. “Just...ask, okay? It’s been a while since…”

_Since we trusted each other with words like that,_ he finishes mentally. Pete gets what he’s implying and bites the inside of his cheek, looking down at the floor. It’s not that he doesn’t want to get back to the point where they shared everything again, it’s just that everything is moving so fast. He’s not sure if he’s ready for that yet.

“...yeah,” Pete finishes, looking ashamed and dejected. “I’ll just...uh…”

Before Patrick can respond to that, Pete is shoving past him, bolting down the hallway. The door of the guest room slams behind him, and Patrick sighs in a strange mix of relief and guilt. _That’s...that’s not right, that’s not what I wanted._ He buries his face in his hands, groaning loudly. If he thought this might be getting easier, he’s just proven himself very, very wrong.

 

* * *

 

 

Pete feels like a dumbass. He _is_ a dumbass.

What right he did have to go looking through Patrick’s stuff? Even if his curiosity was piqued, he still shouldn’t have done it.

He can’t stop thinking about it, though - the messy scribbles with lines scratched through them, pages half-torn out of the book. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but he swears his name was in there a couple of times. If Patrick’s been writing about him...well, he’s not even sure what to think about that. Half of him is too hopeful for his own good, and the other half is expecting the worst.

He has to tell Patrick what he came here to say in the first place - he wants him back. He wants their friendship back. He’ll take whatever he can get, honestly. Even if it means condemning himself to another eternity of longing and watching as Patrick falls in love with anyone but him, he’d do it gladly if it meant the small singer would be his best friend again. That means more to him than anything.

“Hey,” Patrick says softly and without warning, cracking the door open and nearly scaring the shit out of him. “You okay?”

“I’m good,” Pete lies, trying to recover from almost jumping out of his skin. “I just feel bad for looking through your lyrics earlier. I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Patrick says, half-smiling at him. He makes his way into the room, quietly leaning against the nightstand across from the bed. “It’s just been a while, like I said. It’s not like you scribbling down lyrics on my arm in Sharpie, you know? It’s stuff that’s been trapped in my brain for a while.”

Trapped in his brain - boy, does he know that feeling well. He remembers that it was how they survived back then - Pete’s words and Patrick’s music, the way that Joe and Andy always had their backs. He remembers his own faith carrying them forward, from garage to basement to shitty bar. He misses the rawness of it all, the feeling of their first record deal and the terrible two-week long tour and even fighting over who got to sleep in the hotel beds and who had to take the fold-out couch.

It had been so long since it was just the four of them against the world.

Somewhere along the line of him staring and not responding, Patrick had gotten up to leave, and Pete looks up when he’s almost at the door, broken from thought by the panic in his chest. This wasn’t how this conversation was supposed to go. He was supposed to tell Patrick what he meant, how he felt. If he misses his chance now and never gets it again, he’ll never forgive himself.

“Hey, Patrick?” Pete calls after him, and he stops in his tracks. Something about his tone is urgent, desperate, and the way Patrick responds so quickly sends a jolt of nerves up his spine. His throat goes dry, and the way his hands are going numb makes him think he should maybe remember to breathe.

“Yeah?” Patrick asks, his expression open and thoughtful. “Pete, are you okay?”

“I miss the band,” Pete blurts out, gaze darting over to meet Patrick’s. He looks startled, surprised even, but not scared; it gives Pete the balls to shake off his nerves and continue. “I miss being with everyone. I miss the shitty van. I miss bus bunks so small they feel like coffins. I miss how fucking terrible we all smelled after a show. I miss all of it.”

“Pete…” Patrick starts, but his voice trails off. He looks at a loss for words, but the glint of something deeper in his eyes gives away that he wants to say _something_.

“I miss us,” Pete says for him, looking down at the floor. He knows he’s just vomiting out his train of thought now, but he doesn’t think he can stop. “I miss interrupting each other all the time. I miss your horrible music taste. I miss making you go along with my stupid ideas. Hell, I even miss getting so angry at each other we’d throw things until something dumb made us laugh and be friends again.”

Pete isn’t ready for the sudden dip on the bed beside him, Patrick’s knee brushing his own. He tenses, expecting the worst, but all he gets is a hand on his back and quiet hesitation. Patrick clears his throat quietly, and Pete looks up at him from the corner of his eye. The younger man is all soft smiles and forgiving eyes, and he wants to cry from relief. Instead, he lets himself bury his face into Patrick’s shoulder for the first time in _so long_ , and that in itself actually does bring him to the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, and Patrick’s arms wrap around him, one hand landing on his back to rub comforting circles into it, the other drifting upward to brush through his hair. He chokes back a sob, relishing in the feeling that he has this again, that maybe he hasn’t totally and completely messed everything up after all.

“Don’t be,” Patrick soothes, voice sounding like honey and gold and every other sweet, gorgeous thing Pete’s ever seen in his life. “It’s okay, remember? I told you everything was okay, and it is. We don’t have to go back to radio silence.”

Those are the best words Pete’s ever heard in his life, and his arms come up to encircle Patrick’s waist, holding on tight because he’s sure that if he lets go, he’ll float away. It’s different than he’s used to - Patrick is smaller now, and his hair is shorter, and he doesn’t exactly resemble the kid Pete used to bother to no end on long drives through Assfuck, Nowhere - but it’s still exactly what he needs.

His mouth is moving, and he’s not exactly sure what he’s saying, but it’s probably something like an endless stream of _“thank you, thank you, appreciate you so much, missed you, thank you.”_ Patrick pulls him closer, burying his face into Pete’s hair, and doesn’t let go.

“Everything is alright,” Patrick whispers, and Pete just sighs at that, nuzzling into his shoulder as much as he can. He wants to stay like this long enough that he’ll get lost in Patrick and disappear - what he’s wanted since day one, if he’s being honest.

“Hey,” Patrick says softly, pulling back and lifting Pete’s chin so that he’s forced to look at him. His smile is calm and reassuring, and Pete wants to drown in the soft blue of his eyes. He’s really glad he’s sitting right now, because if he wasn’t, his knees would probably go out from being so weak. Just like that, everything falls right into place. “Everything is okay. _Really._ ”

Pete’s definitely still in love with him.

 

* * *

 

 

Ever since the events of the past night, Patrick’s been gifted with Pete’s soft side. He remembers this quiet, gentle side from the past - he’d been on the receiving end of it many times before the break, whenever he’d somehow been able to make Pete’s brain shut up, at least for a while. It puts a smile on his face, knowing that he still has enough effect on Pete to do that.

And if this soft side comes with a couple added bonuses, he’s not complaining. The lingering glances, warm smiles, subtle brushing of hands and arms and legs and - well, whatever part of his body Pete’s close enough to touch - all make him feel strangely light, for once, like a mountain has been lifted off his shoulders. They’ve been sitting on the sofa together for hours now, flipping through old photo albums and laughing at terrible, grainy photos of themselves. The tension has eased, and it feels just like normal - almost like two boys too young to know what to expect out of life riding in the back of the van, making terrible puns and kicking the back of Andy’s seat until he’d reach back and swat at them both.

Good times.

“I’m gonna go see if I have any popcorn left,” Patrick says, standing up from the couch, old photos slipping off his lap as he goes. “We can watch a movie or something.”

“Star Wars marathon?” Pete asks, doing his best attempt at puppy-dog eyes. In reality, he just looks like a monkey hopped up on caffeine, but Patrick isn’t about to tell him that. If Pete wants to look like an idiot when he’s begging for something, who is Patrick to stop him? “ _Please?_ ”

“God, you’re turning into Andy,” Patrick teases, lightly hitting his shoulder. To his surprise, Pete doesn’t retort, just shrugs, a dorky smile tugging at his lips. It sends a twinge of warmth shooting through his chest, watching how easily the relaxed expression crosses Pete’s face. It gives him the hope that everything might be okay.

“Could be worse,” Pete replies finally, raising an eyebrow. “I could be me, circa 2005.”

  
Patrick runs a hand through his hair and ruffles it, which makes Pete scrunch up his nose in faux-annoyance. It’s so endearing he might puke. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. You’re still a massive dork.”

Pete looks up at him, smiling softly in a way that is only reserved for things he puts his heart into. He knows that look - it’s the way his eyes gleam when he knows he’s written a good song or perfected a bassline, the way his expression goes soft when he sees his kid or his dog. It’s the way he’d looked at Patrick during the summer they first met, when Pete had convinced him to sing. “Your dork, though.”

And there they are, the thoughts that he’d tried to push down ever since the beginning. Through the cold nights in the shitty van to the long days on the tour bus, one thing had remained repressed but constant.

He still has feelings for Pete. _Shit._

He ends up saying something like “mhmm, sure” and quickly makes an exit, scurrying to the kitchen to sort himself out.

After that realization clicks in his brain, everything suddenly begins to make a lot more sense - like Joe’s advice, or why figuring Pete out had been bugging him so much, or even why he’d let him stay in the first place. He’s decidedly an idiot - an idiot who needs to stop ignoring his feelings so that it doesn’t feel like he’s being hit by a train every time this happens.

He glances across the room, where Pete’s been watching him out of the corner of his eye, and smiles inwardly at how the older man blinks suddenly and looks down, trying to act nonchalant. He’s always been bad at being subtle, but it might work in Patrick’s favor this time. Pete had to have come all the way here for a reason. Right?

What is he supposed to do about it? He still has hazy memories of warm lips on his own, of hands on his hips and the overwhelming smell of strawberry daiquiri. It’s fuzzy, but it’s there; he couldn’t forget it if he tried. The thing is, he doesn’t want to forget it. He wants it back, but clearer, so he knows exactly what it feels like. His hand comes up to cover his mouth almost like a reflex, and he hates that his skin tone shows blush so easily.

He has to find a way to confront Pete about this - maybe not the romantic aspect of it, persay, but about how he wants them to stay in each other’s lives. How does he start? He’s never done this before. Does he know anyone who can help? Scratch that, who would be _willing_ to help?

Joe. Joe knows things. Of _course._

However, after a couple of missed calls and frantic voicemails - “Joe, pick up, you absolute _douchebag_ , I need help” - he’s left with the thoughts buzzing around in his head and not much else to aide him in his time of crisis.

“Come on, ‘Trick!” Pete calls from the living room, breaking him out of his thoughts. “If you don’t hurry up, I’m starting the movie without you.”

Patrick curses under his breath. For now, the crisis is going to have to wait.

 

* * *

 

 

Pete can’t think.

He’s laid on the bed for hours now, just contemplating how “goodbye” is supposed to go down when all of this is over. Part of him knows that, though he needs to go home, he doesn’t want to leave Patrick again. It had been a long three years without him, and now that he has him back, it feels wrong to just...step out again. The worry that this won’t last, that they’ll grow apart again nags at the back of his mind, and his heart clenches.

He doesn’t want to say goodbye, anymore.

Kicking the blankets off, he swings his legs out of bed. He’s got to walk around or pace or _something_ , or he’s going to go insane from thinking too much.

Patrick is leaning up against the kitchen counter, watching the sun go down through the cloak of the heavy snow outside with a melancholy expression. He’s biting his lip, lost in thought, and it sends a wave of longing crashing over Pete. If there was ever something akin to Pete’s personal hell, it would be this; the itching under his skin and burning in his chest combined.

“Hey,” he says quietly, mostly to get Patrick to start talking - that way, Pete won’t keep staring at him until he does something totally stupid (but also debatably worth it).

“Hey,” Patrick parrots back, just as quiet, but with a hint of a smile. It makes Pete’s heart do the stupid fluttery thing all over again. “Restless?”

“Something like that,” Pete replies, leaning back against the wall. “I’ve just been thinking too much. Nothing new. You know me.”

“I feel that,” Patrick sighs, running his hands over his face. He looks so tired that it makes Pete feel tired, too. “I’ve been thinking too much myself lately.”

“Let’s just stop thinking then.” Pete tries for a sympathetic laugh, but at some point between his head and his mouth it gets stuck and comes out as a strangled, off-key note. Patrick looks up at him, lips quirking up into a pity smile, and the whole ordeal takes him back to _Cork Tree_. Living with Patrick and waking up next to him, getting those pity smiles on a daily basis, remembering how to live like he’s okay - his chest aches in a way he can’t explain.

“I never told you last night,” Patrick says quietly, gazing out the window like he’s searching for answers. The room is quiet, peaceful, for a moment, and Pete allows himself to drink it in - Patrick bathed in the golden glow of the sunset, the way his long eyelashes flutter when he blinks. He traces on the window above the sink with his fingertip, delicately looping patterns into the frosted glass. “But I miss the band too.”

Patrick turns to look at him then, gaze heavy, and sighs. He looks nervous, almost, complete with the wringing hands and the blush settling across his cheeks. Pete takes a sharp breath, feeling his stomach drop like he’s on a rollercoaster with no way of getting off. It doesn’t go unnoticed, and Patrick averts his gaze, focusing on his shoes instead.

He says it so quietly, Pete might have missed it if he wasn’t so intent on listening. “I miss _you_.”

Pete’s heart leaps into his throat, and he almost chokes on air. He probably looks insane, but Patrick still has that deep, sullen expression on his face, and Pete is _really, really glad_ he doesn’t have the skin tone to blush. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Patrick whispers back, shoulders tense as he grips the kitchen counter like a lifeline. “I’ve missed you a lot.”

“I have too,” Pete starts, walking slowly, carefully, into the kitchen. He can’t mess this up. If he does, he’s not sure if he’ll be able to forgive himself. He braces himself against a chair, and then they’re just staring at each other, sizing up the situation. Patrick is the first to break, looking back at the window like it’ll save him.

“The past few years...have been bad. I drank so much, I pushed everything down,” Patrick admits, his voice shaking a bit, and Pete wants nothing more than to hold him and tell him just how perfect he is. “I thought that maybe I could make myself forget.”

Pete sucks in a breath at that. Patrick had regretted the break too. Patrick had been torn up about it too. Patrick had _missed him too._ Somehow, that makes being nervous as hell and clueless about where to go okay, because Patrick is _on the same page as him._

“But I was wrong,” Patrick continues, trying to steady his voice. “I shouldn’t have stayed away from everything. I don’t want to forget the band. I want it back. I want all of it back.”

Pete’s heart soars, and his head feels light, so light. “You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to say the exact same thing. I want to fix things. I want to get back to the way things were.”

“But what if we hadn't...taken a break,” Patrick says carefully, glancing up at him with a weighted expression that Pete can't quite read. He sounds unsure of himself but presses on, fixing Pete with a gaze that feels like it’s burning straight into his soul. “Where do you think we'd be?”

“The band?” The way that Patrick bites his lip makes him suspect that he's not just asking about that, and his throat goes dry. “Or...us?”

“ _Us_ ,” Patrick breathes out at last, and Pete swallows hard, feeling the heat rising to his cheeks. It’s really now or never, isn’t it? “Where would we be?”

Pete steps closer, praying he's reading the signs right, and a twinge of relief shoots through him when Patrick makes no move to get away. Backing him against the counter, he grabs one of Patrick’s hands, watches as the flush crawls across his cheeks, highlighting his nose and the tips of his ears. He brushes his hair back with the other hand, shaking and unsteady, and realizes it's time to face the music. No more dancing around the subject.

“I...I don't know,” he replies, watching something in Patrick’s expression fall. At this, he quickly shifts his hand from its place in Patrick’s hair to rest on the side of his face, the pad of his thumb brushing across his cheek, and he can feel how hard both of their hearts are beating right then. “But I hope...I hope we’d be somewhere around here.”

Pete leans down to kiss him, and suddenly it’s just like the night of the party but a million times better, because neither of them are drunk. This is a choice they’re both consciously making and it feels more right than anything he’s known in years. Fireworks are going off in his head, and they’re probably spelling out “ _holy shit!!!”_ He cups Patrick’s face with both hands, feeling the warmth in his cheeks burn against his fingertips. Patrick clutches at his shirt so tightly that his knuckles are turning white, like if he lets go, he’ll fall apart, and Pete’s tempted to tell him he feels the same way.

He pulls back, opening his mouth to tell him so, but something changes in Patrick’s expression, a flash of an unreadable emotion in his eyes. Both of his hands come up to grab at the collar of Pete’s shirt, and he drags him back in before he has the chance to speak. Pete’s eyes go wide with surprise, but when Patrick’s arms come up to rest on his shoulders, wrists crossed behind his neck, he decides just to go with it. Letting himself relax, he kisses Patrick deeper, drawing him in to wrap his arms around his waist. It’s the most perfect thing, he thinks, the way they fit together just like puzzle pieces.

Patrick threads one hand into his hair, carding through it with slender fingers, and Pete feels himself being pulled away from the counter at the same time. Trying not to stumble over each other’s feet while still staying wrapped up in each other, Patrick cautiously leads them from the kitchen into the living room, nearly tripping over a pair of shoes - Pete’s shoes, of course - in the process. When they make it there without too much trouble stopping them, he pulls away long enough to rest his forehead on Pete’s, breathing hard and fast.

When Pete opens his eyes long enough to take notice, he nearly has a heart attack at the sight in front of him. Patrick’s gaze is dark with lust, and Pete makes the split-second decision to push him down onto the sofa, settling himself across his thighs. He tips Patrick’s chin up, looking straight into his eyes, pupils blown wide enough that the blue around them is barely a sliver of a ring. He hesitates, not sure that this is the right thing to do, but Patrick _still_ makes no attempt to escape. _I’m dreaming. This has to be a dream._ Reality is never this nice to him.

Part of him is still amazed that Patrick had let him kiss him in the first place, but his remaining doubt flies out the window when the younger man makes a needy sound deep in his throat and connects their lips again, one hand pressed into the small of his back. Pete makes a surprised, yet content noise, and threads his fingers into his hair, tugging at the baby curls at the nape of his neck. This, apparently, is a good move, because Patrick shifts to run his hands up Pete’s sides, digging his nails into his back. Pete decides then and there that shirts are useless, and he should probably never wear one ever again.

“Has anyone ever told you how good you are at this?” Pete smiles, taking just a second to commit this moment to memory. The pink in Patrick’s cheeks intensifies, and he hides his face in Pete’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to his collarbone. It sends waves of warmth coursing through his veins from sheer happiness. If he lights up any more than this, he’s going to explode. “No, seriously. Goddamn, ‘Trick.”

“I’m not some kind of innocent virgin, asshole,” Patrick mumbles, lifting his head back up to meet his gaze. Pete thinks he might have actually hurt his feelings, but when he sees the mischievous glint in his eyes, he realizes he’s about to be proven right - something he is both very prepared for and not ready for at all at the same time.

Dipping his head down, Patrick mouths at his neck, licking a stripe across his pulse point and nipping at it. Pete actually gasps, shuddering violently as the sensation shoots through him. He has no idea how the kid got _so fucking good_ at this, whatever this is, but he's both grateful and jealous toward whoever he got the experience from. Heat pools deep in his stomach, and when Patrick brushes a hand along his inner thigh - gently, like it could almost be an accident - the sound that tears from his throat sounds a lot less confident and a lot more desperate than he'd hoped for. In retaliation, he pushes Patrick down onto his back, pinning his arms above his head, but the smirk that this evokes makes him think this could have been the plan all along.

“So, Pete. Did you think we'd be _here_?” Patrick teases breathily, smirk growing even wider, and Pete moves to kiss it off of him before he can say anything else that will make him blush. He's supposed to be the heartthrob here, and he's being one-upped by the kid who once hid in the bathroom on his birthday and asked for the stripper the band had hired to leave. This is nothing like the shy, flustered Patrick that he's known for forever. This is...different, and he's not sure if he likes it or not.

That's quickly decided for him, though, when Patrick’s tongue swipes at his bottom lip. The answer is yes. Definitely yes. He likes this a lot.

And Patrick is moaning, _actually moaning_ , underneath him, rolling his hips up in search of friction, and if Pete doesn’t gets his hands on bare skin this instant, he’s going to go insane. He slides his hands up Patrick’s shirt, flushed skin burning hot against his palms, and digs his nails in, watching the way it makes the breath leave Patrick’s lungs all at once. It’s stupid, how this is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, but not surprising. This is possibly everything he’s ever wanted - Patrick flushed pink, breathing heavily, lips swollen and red from something _he did, hot damn._

Patrick fists one hand in his hair, tugging him back down impatiently, the longing in his gaze enough to send Pete over the edge by itself. His leg comes up to rest between Pete’s thighs, which causes a whine to fall from his lips. He feels like a touch-crazed teenager again, but can anyone really blame him? He’s wanted this for years, and if it turns him into a whimpering, babbling mess, then so be it. Almost as if making a point, Patrick captures his bottom lip and sucks, ever so gently, slowly, and he almost falls apart right then and there.

_I love you,_ Pete thinks, euphoria washing over him in waves. _Of course you know exactly how to tear me apart._

“Pete, wait,” Patrick breathes, pushing him back with a hand on his chest all of a sudden, and he can feel his lungs contract, crying out in search of air that won’t come. _He’s pushing me off, I made a mistake, oh god, I did something wrong._ “What are...what are we doing?”

The reality of what he’s done begins to set in, and the warmth in his chest turns straight to ice. The train of thought going through his brain crashes right into a wall, panic beginning to set in. What _is_ he doing? This is exactly what broke them that night in the hotel room, Pete unraveling and making mistake after mistake. He’s not about to do that again. He won’t go through that again. He _won’t_.

_I’m going to ruin him._

His hands are starting to go numb, and he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing is coming out. It feels somewhat akin to having an anxiety attack, but the way his heart is pounding, trying to tear right through his ribcage, is all too real. He can pinpoint the exact moment his fight or flight response kicks in, rolling off the couch, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. He has to get out of here, _right now_.

 

* * *

 

 

_The door to their hotel room slams behind Pete as he storms in after Patrick, cloaked in irritation. Patrick slides his hands into his hair, praying that he won’t take this too far, but it’s pretty much useless and he knows it. There’s nothing Pete can say to get him to reconsider the break, and Pete not getting that is coming down to the last straw for him._

_“This isn’t how I wanted this to go,” Pete insists, beginning to pace. “I wanted you to, I don’t know, maybe listen to me?”_

_“Yeah, Pete, this is exactly how I wanted to spend my last night as a band,” Patrick spits, sarcasm leaking out of every word. “Fighting with someone I don’t even know anymore about how he thinks I should drop everything for him whenever he feels like it.”_

_“That’s not what I mean,” Pete starts, but Patrick cuts him off, seething with anger._

_“Shut up, asshole, I don’t want to hear it.” He crosses the room, putting his hands on Pete’s chest and shoving as hard as he can. “You know what? Fuck you. I don’t need you to be successful. I don’t need anybody.”_

_“You don’t even feel a little bit sad about this ending?” Pete digs, stumbling backward. “You don’t want to at least try to give it a chance?”_

_“I need a break, Pete,” Patrick sighs, throwing his arms up in exhaustion. “I can’t do this anymore. You can’t change my mind about this. We aren’t working anymore.”_

_Patrick practically watches his heart break, but he covers it quickly, his expression morphing into one of indignation. “Fine, then. Is that what you want? For me to leave? If that’s what’ll make you happy, then consider me halfway out the door already.”_

_He rolls his eyes, so sick of the drama that always comes along with Pete’s meltdowns. “Fuck you, you know that’s not what I meant.”_

_“Then what the hell is your problem with me? What did I do to piss you off this much?”_

_Patrick curls his hands into fists, taking the last bit of willpower he has left so that he won’t punch the wall. “Of course, because everything always has to be about you, doesn’t it? Did it ever occur to you that I’m tired of being a recurring character on the Pete Wentz Disaster show?” As soon as the words leave his mouth he regrets them, but there’s no going back now. He’s dug his grave, and it’s time to lay in it. “‘Patrick, fix me, fix this, make this better, keep me from jumping off the goddamn roof.’ I’m tired, Pete, I’m tired! I can’t fix everything! I can’t be everything you want me to be!”_

_“I’m not asking you to be that!” Pete exclaims, tearing at his hair in frustration. “I just want the Patrick I used to know back! The Patrick I used to know wouldn’t give up on this. He wouldn’t let this go so easily.”_

_Patrick smiles bitterly, holding his arms out. “This is it. This is what you get. If you don’t like it, that’s your problem. I’m done here. I don’t know why you care so much, anyway. It’s not like it’ll change my mind.”_

_“You want to know why I care so fucking much, huh?” Pete bristles, digging his nails into his palms. In a sudden fit of anger, he picks up his phone and throws it across the room, the sound of breaking glass making them both flinch. When he looks back at Patrick, there are tears welling up in his eyes. “I fucking love you, you asshole, that’s why! I love you!”_

_“If you loved me, you’d leave me alone and stop spitting this bullshit at me to guilt me back into following you around like a lost puppy!” Patrick screams, feeling the last of the fire leave him in the exhale. Shaking with the exertion, he draws his thoughts together enough to close his eyes and turn away, gesturing toward the door. “I’m done being your fucking bitch, Pete. Get out.”_

_Pete shakes his head, vision cloudy through the tears. His shoulders slump, and for once, he looks totally defeated as he walks toward the door. Giving Patrick a shaky smile over his shoulder, he tosses one last remark back._

_“What a catch.”_

-

“Pete? Are you okay?” Patrick asks, suddenly very, very alert and aware of the other man tumbling off him like touching him burns his skin.

“I need to go,” Pete pants, shaking his head and pushing Patrick away from him. It sends a sharp pang of hurt straight into Patrick’s heart. “I have to leave. I have to leave right now.”

“Wait, no, I just wanted to know if you were okay with…” Patrick reaches out for him, makes a grab at his arm, but Pete gapes at him with a wide-eyed stare that makes his stomach turn. He sits up, running a hand through his wild hair, and watches as Pete - the same Pete he’d been kissing just moments ago, whose lips are still spit-slick and swollen - grabs his shirt, scrambles backward across the floor, and heaves himself to his feet, hitting the wall behind him so hard that it makes him jump.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Pete murmurs, quiet enough that Patrick probably wasn’t supposed to hear it, and that’s what sends him over the edge.

The passion in his chest ignites, white hot and spitting between the cracks of his ribs, and he can feel the anger building up, just like it used to. The old anger problems that once haunted his waking hours, that made him see red, that drove him to push Pete away threaten to return, heat settling in his stomach and searing at the back of his throat. _Of course_ this would happen to him. He should have seen it coming.

“So that's it, then? You come back into my life just to fuck me up again? Tearing me apart to make yourself feel better? Is that what you get off to?” He hisses, and Pete flinches. Patrick clenches his teeth, feeling the muscles in his jaw tense. “That's even more fucked up than I thought possible from you. I guess I thought wrong.”

“That's not it, Patrick,” Pete stutters, eyes wide and scared, and it _infuriates_ him. Why does he always get to be the one to break Patrick’s heart and run? Why does he always get to play the victim?

“Then what?” Patrick spits, digging his nails into his palms. “What is so fundamentally wrong with me?”

“It's not you,” Pete says, but Patrick couldn’t be bothered to listen to him. He knows he's going too far, that he’s letting his anger problems take control of him again, but he's had to deal with this for the past three years and _fuck this_ , if Pete’s going to be this way with him, then he's allowed to be pissed.

“Bullshit.” He smiles bitterly, all venom and sharp edges. “I don't know what it is about me that makes you think it's okay to chew me up and spit me out like I'm just another one of your _hookups,_ but I thought I was special to you. Silly me.”

Pete's eyebrows furrow, and Patrick can practically feel the heat radiating off of him as the anger fills his gaze. His hands curl into fists, and he bites the inside of his cheek so hard he can taste blood. This is fighting dirty; this is familiar ground. “If you would pull your stubborn head out of your ass, maybe you'd see that this isn't all about you.”

“You're right, it's never about me,” Patrick counters, standing up slowly. “It's always about you. _‘I'm Pete Wentz, I'm so messed up, I'm mega fucked up so you have to forgive me.’_ Fuck you. In the real world, we don’t always get to run from our problems, like whatever problem you clearly have with us.”

“I don't have a problem with you, I have a problem with me!” Pete insists, pressing his palms over his eyes. “You're not a hookup, you're not just a warm body, you're different, and that's why I can't do this.”

“You think this wasn't hard for me?” Patrick demands, raising his voice and taking a step forward. “You think I wasn't going crazy thinking about you this entire time? I trusted you, Pete! I let you back in! Do you mean that you really _can't_ do this, or that you _won’t_?”

Pete pulls his hands down and looks at him, trembling with the intensity of an emotion that makes Patrick’s heart leap into his throat. “I love you, don't you _get it_?” He shouts, balling his hands into fists.

Patrick sucks in a sharp breath, the last time Pete had told him he had loved him replaying in his memory. His mouth hangs open, as if he’s trying to speak, but he's left searching for words that don’t come. Pete actually winces at this, dark eyes clouding with pain. It feels like a punch straight to the chest.

Pete looks back down at the floor, shoulders slumping in defeat, like the weight of the world is crashing down on him. He says it again, quieter this time. “I love you, but you know how well that worked out for us. I end up ruining everything I love. I am not going to ruin you.”

Patrick’s heart clenches, and his hands come up automatically, as if reaching out for him will keep him from running. Pete steps back toward the door, a startled look in his eyes, and Patrick gapes at him, his breaths shaking. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It's happening again._ No matter how pissed he is, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t let them end up like they did three years ago, broken beyond repair. He doesn’t think he can go through that again. “Pete, wait, we can fix this.”

“You want to know what would fix this? What would make it okay for you?” Pete asks, voice falling so low that Patrick almost can't hear him. “Pretend this never happened. Forget me. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

The slam of the door is just the same as it was years ago.

 

* * *

 

 

The jacket he’d grabbed before running out the door has two problems with it. One, it’s way too thin to hold up against a blizzard, and two, it’s not his. Kind of hard to forget about someone when you end up accidentally stealing his jacket. Oh, well.

Shivering against the cold, he presses on, keeping one eye on the rapidly darkening sky. He’s kind of fucked if he doesn’t make it back to the bar - or at least somewhere relatively warm - before sundown, and the intense wind isn’t really helping that. If the distance between the bar and Patrick’s house had seemed long before, it feels twice as long now that he’s actually sober. It’s probably colder now too, damn it. Why couldn’t he have been a dumbass in the summer?

At least he’s almost there, now. The dim glow of the streetlights lining the familiar sidewalk is blurry through the snow, but still there. The tattoo parlor he’s in front of now is definitely familiar, which is a good sign. The one thing that is a _not so good_ sign is that every store he’s seen so far is closed, which is a possibility he’s really only now considering. If the bar is closed - if _everything_ around here is closed - where is he supposed to go?

All of a sudden, a bright light sweeping over the length of the wall makes him jump. He turns around, cupping his hands around his eyes in an attempt to figure out what the fuck is going on. The most logical answer would be a car, but the problems with that theory include 1.) there hadn’t been any cars on the road since he stepped foot out of the house, and 2.) _it’s the middle of a fucking blizzard._ While the blowing snow makes it hard to see, his doubts are erased, because that is _definitely_ a car coming down the road toward him.

“What kind of idiot would drive in a blizzard this bad?” Pete mumbles to himself, eyeing the headlights closing in with suspicion. He remembers blizzards well; even the most experienced of Chicago residents wouldn’t drive in a storm this bad. It’s practically a breakdown waiting to happen. Automobile suicide. Nobody would even try it unless they really needed something.

When the car creeps closer, though, Pete can start to make out the shape of it, and his heart turns over in his chest. He knows that color and model, can probably read off the license plate number by heart. It’s _his_ idiot.

He imagines this is what a deer must feel like when’s it standing in the path of an oncoming bus, what with the wide beams of the headlights sweeping over him and the wind whipping around him. Patrick slams the door behind him, partially swallowed by a heavy coat and scarf, squinting to see him through the snow. It makes Pete ache down to his bones. Patrick starts toward him, and his heart leaps into his throat.

“No, no, no, _nope_ ,” Pete says, spinning on his heel and walking toward the alleyway between the bar and the tattoo parlor. “I am not doing this right now. I am _not_ -”

Patrick cuts him off by grabbing him by the arm and yanking him around. Pete pulls back, tries to shake him off, but it’s no use. Patrick’s grip might as well be made of steel. “Yes, we _are_ doing this right now, because I’m not finished with you. You didn’t even let me respond, and I have driven all over looking for you, and you probably have frostbite by now, you _idiot_.”

Pete shrugs, letting the bitterness flood his gaze. “Why the fuck do you care?”

“Maybe because you mean something to me?” Patrick fires back, digging his nails into Pete’s arm. “You’re not the only person on the planet who has emotions, you know.”

Pete winces slightly at the pressure of Patrick’s nails digging into his skin, and pulls his arm back. “Good to know, thanks for reminding me. Would you leave me alone now?”

“Absolutely not,” Patrick says, stepping closer so that Pete is forced to look at him. “You didn’t give me the chance to finish back at the house, so I’ll finish it out here, if I have to.”

“Do your worst, I guess,” Pete smiles bitterly, holding his hands up in surrender. “Feel free to beat the shit out of me if you hate me that much. It would probably be cathartic for you.”

“You’re a fucking dumbass, Pete,” Patrick says, so close now that Pete can feel his warm breath on his face. “God, you’re always so dramatic. Could you just shut up and listen to someone else for once?”

Pete feels himself bristle at that. “I swear to god, if you drove out here just to yell at me about how stupid I am for -”

“Pete. _Shut. Up._ ” Patrick cuts him off, grabbing the front of his jacket with both hands, curling the worn material into tight fists. He stumbles over his own feet as Patrick shoves him backwards, slamming him up against the brick wall of the alleyway. He might be small, but Pete knows all too well that when he gets angry, he develops superhuman strength. That plus the intensity in his gaze makes Pete’s heart straight up stop in his chest. He may actually be dead. Consider him deceased. Gone. _Sayonara._

However, instead of the rage Pete is fearing, Patrick’s expression softens, as does the tone of his voice. It makes his heart clench, and he starts to maybe feel a bit guilty for assuming that Patrick was going to lay into him. “I’m not here to yell at you. I’m really not. Just...listen to me for once.”

They’re both breathing heavily at this point, the puffs of air swirling quietly in the space between them, and Pete’s heart might actually break through his ribcage at this point. His eyes are so wide, and he feels like he’s seeing Patrick for the first time all over again. It’s enough to make him want to both cry and throw up. Maybe at the same time.

“Okay,” he breathes out, his gaze not breaking from Patrick’s for a second. He wants to look away, to stop feeling the electricity at every point Patrick’s touching him, but he _can’t_ look away. It’s a study in unspoken tension, choking on the words he never said.

“I don’t like remembering that night in New York, either,” Patrick starts, biting his lip for a second while he figures out how to continue. “But it’s not like I could forget about it. Or you. Especially in the past few days.”

He laughs, a bittersweet sound that makes Pete fall in love and hate himself at the same time. “I wanted to be mad at you when you showed up on my doorstep. I _was_ mad at you. What gave you the right to suddenly come waltzing back into my life, right when I was trying to get over you?” He pauses, gaze clouding with something warmer that lets Pete know it’s okay. “But you were drunk, and vulnerable, and I couldn’t leave you out there, no matter how mad I was at you. You kind of have that effect on people.”

Pete’s brain can’t keep up with his mouth, as per usual. “Get over me?”

Patrick laughs again, but softer this time, the genuine kind where the crinkles by his eyes come out from smiling so broadly. “Of course that’s the one thing you fixate on. Yes, _get over you_ , you idiot. You really are that oblivious, aren’t you?”

“I…” Pete starts, but he’s not really sure what he’s trying to say. What is he _supposed_ to say? This feels like too much of a dream to be true, but sure enough, the cold biting at his face and the ghosting of Patrick’s warm breath on his cheeks and the dizzying, whirling sensation that threatens to make him black out is all there, all real.

“I remembered, you know,” Patrick says, voice dropping down to a whisper. “When you kissed me the first time, at that party. I kissed you back for a reason. I meant it. I wasn't sure if you meant it.”

“ _I did_ ,” Pete says, the words coming out all in one breath. “I always meant it, I still mean it.”

“Then why did you leave?” Patrick asks, a bit of uncertainty creeping into his tone. “Why did you run out if you love me?”

Pete knows that he doesn't just mean now; he means New York, too, and he splits open along new fault lines he didn't even know he had. “I was scared, Patrick. I thought you hated me for it. I thought it would be better if you...if we didn't see each other again.” Patrick visibly winces, and Pete reaches out for him, dying to do _anything_ to take back the pain.

“I just got you back,” Patrick insists, words choked with raw emotion. “I’m not going to lose you again.”

“You won’t.” It’s out of Pete’s mouth before he even realizes he’s said it, but once he sees the way Patrick’s eyes light up, he wouldn’t take it back for anything in the world. “You never lost me in the first place.”

“Is that so?” Patrick breathes out, the corners of his lips quirking up into a smile. His eyes are gleaming again, and the way his glance falls to Pete’s mouth and back up again is not lost on him, not in the slightest. “Well, then, in that case…”

He’s so startled when Patrick’s lips press against his own that he almost forgets to kiss him back - and wouldn’t that be tragic? However, Patrick’s hand shifts from clutching his jacket to rest on his chest, right over his heart, which is beating erratically. The pressure of Patrick’s palm pressing into his ribcage jerks him back into reality, and he lets himself be kissed like he’s never been kissed before.

It’s not like the way he’d kissed Patrick back at the house, rushed, in a frenzied haze of desperation and want. No, Patrick kisses him deeply, with so much intent and meaning behind it that Pete feels like everything around them is gone. Nothing matters except this, right here, right now. Patrick moves his other hand up to gently brush against the side of his face, and it shouldn’t have as much of an effect on him as it does, but his entire body flushes with warmth. Almost like a reflex, his arms come up to wrap around Patrick’s waist, and the noise that falls out of his mouth as he does so is something that probably should not be heard in public.

Noting this, Patrick smirks, knowing that he’s practically got Pete falling apart in his hands now, and presses so close to him that there is literally no space between them. Pete feels like he might actually be becoming part of the wall behind him, or at least being slightly suffocated by Patrick’s scarf. But hey, he’s not complaining. Being kissed to death isn’t a bad way to go.

“You didn’t let me say that I loved you back, stupid,” Patrick murmurs against his lips, eyelids fluttering as Pete attempts to pull him back in. He chuckles quietly, bringing his hand up to cover Pete’s mouth, to which Pete protests greatly. He could have spent _a decade_ doing this, and he’s not about to stop making up for lost time. “We’re both going to get sick out here.”

“Don’t care,” Pete breathes out, not even bothering to hide his desperation now. He attempts to draw Patrick back in, but the latter just laughs against him even harder, smiling wider than he has for years. “ _Patrick_. Honestly, I could die right now and not be bothered.”

“Well, I’d prefer it if neither of us died. That might defeat the whole purpose of this.” Patrick pulls back again, despite Pete’s whining, and looks up at him with a soft, gorgeous expression of affection that he hasn’t seen in a long time. His cheeks are bright pink and his hair is falling messily in his eyes, and Pete has probably never seen anything prettier in his entire life. _Why didn’t we do this years ago?_ “Come on, just get in the car and let’s go back to my house. We can figure everything out there - and also _not die._ ”

“You really want me to stay with you?” Pete says, raising an eyebrow. “My track record shows that I’m usually more trouble than I’m worth.”

Patrick nods, brushing his knuckles gently against the length of his cheekbone, and Pete leans into it, feeling himself begin to melt despite the _literal blizzard_ raging on around them. “Come home with me,” he begs, cerulean eyes sparkling with mirth. Pete wants to kiss the flush off his cheeks, to tangle his fingers into that soft hair, glinting redgold in the branches of sunlight reaching down from between the clouds. He’d do anything if it meant Patrick would keep looking at him like that. “Come _home._ ”

“Okay,” Pete breathes, a smile breaking across his face. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
